Fernando BryceTaipei Biennal 201229.09.2012 - 13.01.2013

Like in many of his other works, Bryce organizes this series of covers in chronological order which makes a line of thinking becomes apparent, as well as a shift in representation based on the politics that were in vogue at that point. The series of Asia magazines give a distinct impression of how the East was perceived in the West in the 1920s and 1930s. They show the stereotypical and paternalistic way in which the local context was represented, which later gave way to images of an enemy when the situation changes during World War II.
Through reproduction, the images and text look at first like ironic representations, but then you realize that the artist didn’t add anything—the content was there already and the statements circulated among large groups of people, consolidating public opinion. Also, by putting the documents in an art context where cultural capital is generated, the attention shifts to another dimension, where other forms of representation are produced. In this case, the documents are restaged by anachronistic witnesses that bring to mind obstinate imperial representations.